BMW jumpstarts FA National Football Centre project

BMW may have played a telling role in the future of English football. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images

If English coaches' decade-long wait for a National Football Centre is brought to an end with the Football Association board's final approval of the project later this year, it will be due in no small part to the effect of a visit to a BMW training facility near Reading last year.

There had been implacable opposition from professional-game representatives on the FA board, who felt the development of the NFC at Burton-on-Trent would be a waste of the English game's diminishing resources.

Even David Sheepshanks, the man who led the delivery of the NFC project, stood against the idea. But that changed when the board visited the BMW academy at Wokefield Park, where a De Vere hotel has been built in order to cash in on required occupancy from the car manufacturer, for its apprentices.

The trip is said to have helped convert FA board members, not least Sheepshanks,. Now the business model for Burton, a 330-acre site the FA has held since 2001, is broadly the same as for Wokefield Park. Four hotel operators are said to be interested in building two facilities – one three-star, the other four and providing 230 rooms – on the St George's Park land. It is hoped that a hotelier partnership will take care of at least half of the £70m required to complete the project.

Another eight-figure sum is expected from the development of 30 large family homes on the site while public grants and sponsorship input from Umbro are also described as "significant" to the delivery of the NFC. But even if all that finance can be raised there is still a shortfall of up to £20m. That means the FA's finances must improve or Sheepshanks' enthusiasm will have to be shared by other sponsors before construction can get under way.

Storrie silenced

Peter Storrie was in court for 20 minutes yesterday to hear that he must wait until the end of the next football season before his case goes to trial. There was enough time for him to be warned by the judge by the judge not to repeat his previous public comments about the charges against him. A pleas hearing will take place in April with the main main trial not until May 2010. Authorities are still weighing up whether to try him alongside Harry Redknapp and Milan Mandaric – which would take eight weeks – or in a separate, three-week process.

England expects

Official England supporters' club members have still not been told if they have been successful in their with applications for World Cup tickets, though notification had been expected on Monday. That is because the FA has still not received a sign off from Fifa and its tickets-and-hotels partner, Match. The indications are that up to 10,000 England fans might travel for games. Even so, the 2010 World Cup looks set to be the most undersubscribed tournament in recent history. The Germany's football federation has revealed that it has sold only 579, 655 and 682 tickets for their group-stage matches against Australia, Serbia and Ghana.

Twenty20 short of fans

Things do not look good for the International Cricket Council's World Twenty20 tournament in the West Indies in April. Remembering the disastrous attendances for the region's 2007 World Cup, there seems no chance of replicating the 96% capacities across the board which were achieved at the tournament's last edition, in this country last year. The tournament director, Robert Bryan, said: "Coming into 2010 we have seen increased interest in the tournament with more fans inquiring about and indeed buying tickets." A spokeswoman did not return Digger's call after being asked how many tickets had been sold so far.

Sony stumped

Indian Premier League cricket chiefs yesterday signed a streaming deal with YouTube that will provide live coverage of matches anywhere in the world, outside of the USA, where a previous internet-streaming deal with Willow TV will prevail. But for some reason there do not appear to be the same considerations for Sony Entertainment TV in India, which was said to have signed a $1bn, 10-year deal with the IPL for exclusive broadcast of matches in that country. Last night, no one from IPL or SET was available to explain why the broadcaster was so unruffled by this territorial intrusion. With only 11 of 67 available players bought at the IPL auction this week, might it just be that all the big-money boasts of the IPL do not stack up?